City missed the opportunity to return to the top of the Premier League - failing to score in consecutive top flight matches for the first time since January 2012 - after the 1-0 defeat to Chelsea on Monday night.

The travelling support were left bemused by the decision to replace Alvaro Negredo with defender Aleksandar Kolarov late on but Pellegrini has claimed the Spaniard is one of a number of strikers to be struggling with fitness.

The Chilean told BBC Sport: "Our strikers Sergio Aguero, Alvaro Negredo and Edin Dzeko are not 100% fit so that's very important for the team.

"We are frustrated because we could not win, but we did all we could do but in front of us there was a team who defended very well.

"Every team will drop points, but we are still two points behind the leaders and we have 39 points to play for so we will continue exactly the same."

Meanwhile, Norwich boss Chris Hughton has paid tribute to his side for their defensive display and insists they could have even snatched three points late on.

He claimed: "It shows how important the result was when we are playing a team that can score goals as readily as they want but it's also the manner in which we finished the game.

"We had two good positions very late in the game and they could have seen us win the game. We defended very well and over the 90 minutes I thought we thoroughly deserved the draw."